


Love, love, love

by paperdream



Series: Ink Does Banned Together Bingo 2020 [1]
Category: Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Banned Together Bingo, Bokononism, M/M, POV First Person, Sexy Posture Art, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, author's best efforts at replicating the calypsos (i am bad at poetry rip), this is the most esoteric thing ive ever written, yeah i know but it only worked if i tried mimicking the books narration and thats in first person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperdream/pseuds/paperdream
Summary: "I think you're my soulmate."His eyes fixed on the writing, before flicking to look me up and down. The smile returned, brighter but still suppressed, as if the two of us shared a wonderful secret. "That happiness is mine."
Relationships: Philip Castle/John | Jonah (Cat's Cradle)
Series: Ink Does Banned Together Bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009029
Kudos: 2
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Love, love, love

**Author's Note:**

> Ok this was written because I got "Sexy Posture Art" on my Banned Together Bingo card and the concept- which I came up with last fall when I read Cat's Cradle for a class- seemed to fit, what with the mosaic of Mona and all. The concept exists because listen. Listen. Cat's Cradle is Quite Queer. The narrator's had two failed marriages. Philip is canonically gay. It's right there. Plus I thought as soon as I read the scene where they meet that their first lines to each other would make for a HILARIOUS first words soulmate AU concept. And so here we are.
> 
> This probably doesn't make much sense without having read the novel, but also there's a chance it doesn't make much sense if you HAVE read the novel. Some lines of dialogue are pulled or paraphrased directly from the original, all credit to Kurt Vonnegut.

I had never put much stock in the words that climbed in rounded hand around my left bicep. Less after my first wife left me, furious that I had failed to notice or care that she'd been carrying on with the grocer for some three months

A soulmate, Bokonon tells us, is the one person on Earth we can be certain is also a member of our _karass,_ the one person whose great purpose, whose _wampeter,_ we can be sure is linked with our own. However, he does not follow the traditional line that soulmates must be lovers, or even friends. The primary Calypso on the subject reads:

> God thought that man
> 
> Should not be too lonely,
> 
> So he split man's mud
> 
> Into sets, only
> 
> For your _wampeter's_ end
> 
> When you find your mate
> 
> It can be love, love, love
> 
> Or hate, hate, hate.

Popular rumor said that Bokonon's own words could be found around the navel of his friend-turned-enemy Earl McCabe, and that was why the San Lorenzan regime pursued the exiled holy man so aggressively, but the rumors were denied by both McCabe and his successor, "Papa" Monzano.

\---

My attention was drawn from Ambassador Minton's revelation of his wife's ability to read homosexuality from an index by one entry under _Aamons, Mona_ : "lack of soulmark, 72 f, 95, 200-201, 209, 401."

At first I was saddened by the idea that such a perfect woman would never know the completion said to come from finding one's soulmate, but as I thought on it it seemed only to deepen her essential charisma. A reluctant goddess of love, not marked for one so that she could present her beauty to all, chastely kept from deeper connection but still fundamentally erotic in her presence. 

By the time we landed I had thoroughly charmed myself with the thought.

\---

The lobby of the Casa Mona was empty, save for a man in white duck trousers working on a colossal mosaic. The mosaic was of Mona Aamons Monzano, her form unfinished but stretched in a lazy arc, draped in a diaphanous gown similar to the one I'd seen on the real article.

The mosaic couldn't hope to compare with the grace of her slender arms, the perfection of her pomegranate breasts, the swoop of her hips, the transcendence of her person, but it was a good effort. Her dainty feet curled beneath her thighs and in the dip of her waist I could almost feel the same allure and contentedness her presence had generated. But still, the representation paled now that I had seen the true Mona, though any man who had not been so blessed would surely put the figure's beauty to artistic license.

The Casa Mona's register was even emptier than it's lobby- H. Lowe Crosby balked at the pristinely lined page and announced his intention to photograph the mosaicist, lest his wife or I think him superstitious. And so mine was the first name signed to the register of the Casa Mona.

I had hardly finished when Crosby came barreling back, tomato-red in the face. "That man is the biggest pissant I've ever met! You can't say a damn thing to him that he won't turn inside out." So I went over to the mosaicist, interested to witness such a talent.

The mosaicist was white. Closer now, I realized that his torso- young, and well-muscled- was not entirely bare, but that a band nearly the color of his flesh was wrapped around his upper arm. I watched for a while as he decorated the Grecian vase curve of Mona's neck with fine hairs made from chips of gold, each easily worth twice the pittance any of the islanders made in a year. The sparkle of the gold and the pale of his hands stood out beautifully against the dark of Mona's skin.

At length I said to him, "I envy you."

He put down his container of gold chips. "I always knew," he sighed with a voice that seemed as tranquil as a spring day, "that, if I waited long enough, somebody would come and envy me. I kept telling myself to be patient, that, sooner or later, somebody envious would come along."

His words gave me pause. Envy was not a vice I frequently indulged in, but the plane flight, the dispiriting first sight of San Lorenzo, and most of all Mona's intoxicating presence had scattered my thoughts somewhat, and the words had slipped out.

He had turned around to look me full in the face, a curious smile darting across his lips. I knew, of course, that it must be his handwriting that wrapped around my arm- what could the odds be, that I would hear such a statement more than once in my life? But I had no idea if he was equally certain.

Rather than anything relevant, what eventually left my mouth was, "Are you an American?"

The smile flitted away, and he leaned his elbows back on the ladder. "That happiness is mine." Without the smile, his features were aristocratic, nearly intimidating, but the shadow of laugh lines lingered around his eyes.

I fumbled at my sleeve, pulling to reveal the words that had graced my arm my entire life. "I think you're my soulmate."

His eyes fixed on the writing, before flicking to look me up and down. The smile returned, brighter but still suppressed, as if the two of us shared a wonderful secret. "That happiness is mine." He reached to pull the covering from his own arm, but was interrupted by H. Lowe Crosby, back to have another go.

"What do you call yourself," Crosby sneered, "a beatnik or what?"

I nearly opened my mouth, but found my tongue stilled by the clenching and unclenching of Crosby's fists and the thought that I would almost certainly have to share the cabin of my flight back home with his short temper and superior bulk, and my being a Hoosier was unlikely to save me. The mosaicist's mouth twisted in annoyance, but the even calm never left his voice. "I call myself a Bokononist."

Crosby drew himself up in outrage. "That's against the law in this country, isn't it?"

"I happen to have the happiness of being an American. I can say I'm a Bokononist any time I please, and so far, no one's bothered me at all." He met my eyes with the air of someone sharing an inside joke with an intimate friend, among company who do not understand a joke has been told at all.

"I believe in obeying the laws of whatever country I happen to be in."

"You are not telling me the news."

If Crosby's face was a tomato before, it was an eggplant now. "Screw you, Jack!"

"Screw you, Jasper, and screw Mother's Day and Christmas, too. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other things to attend to. I've just met my soulmate." He hopped down from his ladder and offered me his hand. I took it, but didn't shake, just sort of clasped it and stared into his eyes.

Crosby spluttered, before finally rounding on me. "I feel bad for you, mated to a _pissant_ like that." He stormed to the front desk. My soulmate started to pull me away, but then seemed to reconsider, gesturing for me to watch as Crosby railed against him to the poor hotel clerk.

Finally, the clerk was able to get a word in. "Sir… he owns the hotel."

Crosby turned to stare back at us, dumbfounded. My soulmate made a little half bow. "Philip Castle, at you service."

And so the Crosby's left to seek shelter at the American embassy, and I was also the last person to sign the register at the Casa Mona.

**Author's Note:**

> Does the apocalypse still happen? What does the narrator's relationship with Mona end up looking like? (I feel like maybe that ends up a V relationship with the narrator at the center) Can the love between these two bois somehow avert the apocalypse? Does Philip's influence get them to melt down Papa before disaster can strike? Does the narrator even still accept the offer to be the next president of San Lorenzo? Idk man, I just write the thing.


End file.
